Larb

Ingredients

• Pork — chopped by hand600 g
• Sticky rice — raw, for the powder3 tbsp
• Fish sauce4 tbsp
• Limes4
• Toasted chilli flakes2 tsp
• Shallots4
• Spring onions4
• Mint30 g
• Coriander30 g
• Lettuce and raw vegetables — to serve300 g
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Toast the raw sticky rice in a dry pan for ten minutes, to a deep gold, stirring.

   12 min

2. 2

   Grind the cooled rice in a mortar or mill to a coarse powder.

   6 min

3. 3

   Chop the pork fine with a knife, but not to a paste; the pieces should stay distinguishable.

   15 min

4. 4

   Cook the meat in a pan with two spoons of water over medium heat for five minutes, breaking up lumps.

   7 min

5. 5

   Take it off the heat and let it cool to warm, about five minutes.

   6 min

6. 6

   Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice, chilli, shallot and rice powder.

   4 min

7. 7

   Add the herbs, toss and serve with sticky rice and raw vegetables.

   4 min

About the dish

Khao khua — raw sticky rice toasted brown and ground to powder — supplies both texture and a nutty smell. Without it this is only a meat salad.

The meat is cooked fast and almost without oil, in its own juices. It has to stay moist: overcooked, it makes a dry larb, and the rice powder only makes that worse.

The dressing — fish sauce, lime juice and toasted ground chilli — goes into meat that has cooled. Herbs go in last so they do not wilt in the heat.

Worth knowing

• — Make the rice powder in quantity and keep it in a jar — it goes into other dishes too. But not beyond a month: the aroma fades.
• — Taste and adjust the dressing before serving. Larb has to be sour, salty and hot at once, and the balance is set by tasting.
• — It is eaten by hand, scooped up with a ball of sticky rice. That is the method, not a performance.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

34 g

Fat

22 g

Carbs

20 g

More from Laos

• Tam mak hoong — Green papaya salad pounded in a mortar. The Lao version, made with fermented fish padaek.